After spending hours with senior administration figures, President Donald Trump’s friend Chris Ruddy walked out of the White House on Monday, took an Uber to the PBS studio and said on TV that he thought Trump might fire special counsel Robert Mueller — a bombshell revelation even by 2017 Washington standards.

The CEO of the conservative website Newsmax then bounded over to Georgetown, stopping for dinner at Cafe Milano, as the puzzled political class tried to make sense of it all. The mere suggestion that Trump might try to throw Mueller overboard drew comparisons to Richard Nixon and condemnation from Democrats and Republicans. It led television news for hours. It made the front page of The New York Times.

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Republicans on Capitol Hill were exasperated by it all. No one seemed focused on workforce development, which the White House has put forward as its top policy priority for the week.

Trump aides immediately tried to downplay Ruddy’s significance in the president’s orbit. “Mr. Ruddy never spoke to the president regarding this issue. With respect to this subject, only the president or his attorneys are authorized to comment,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer wrote in a late-night statement.

By Tuesday morning, Ruddy was on TV again, reiterating his claims and criticizing Spicer. Ruddy offered no proof to back up his claim. But no one in the White House has stepped forward to definitively refute it, either.

“He did not deny it,” Ruddy said Tuesday about Spicer’s statement. “He did not issue a statement denying my story. It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s amateur hour. It was a ridiculous statement.”

White House aides said Trump had no plan to fire Mueller and that Ruddy’s remark was pure speculation. They privately tried to question his access to the president. “They were in serious damage control mode after what seemed like the rare quiet day,” said one top Republican close to the West Wing.

White House officials wanted Ruddy to make clear that he didn’t speak to the president, but Ruddy said he refused. “I never said that I did speak to him about this,” Ruddy said. “Why are they issuing a press release on this matter?”

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Ruddy said his comments mirrored those by Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow, who said on Sunday that the president reserved the right to fire Mueller. Sekulow, however, did not say Trump was considering it — just that he reserved his right to do so. West Wing officials said that was a big difference, but Ruddy disagreed.

Ruddy’s remarks drew widespread head-scratching, even by Trump standards. Why would a Trump friend go on TV and say that, even if it were true? What would be the repercussions? Would the president actually consider doing that? Why would a Trump friend openly criticize the president’s press secretary? Why would reporters take a friend as seriously — or more seriously — than White House aides?

Ruddy said he was simply calling it like he saw it.

“I think the big story is that Mueller is an illegitimate special counsel. He’s a threat to the president, even though I don’t think the president has done anything wrong,” Ruddy said Tuesday morning. He added: “I still think it would be a mistake to fire him.”

Ruddy has been a Trump friend for more than a decade. He is an investigative reporter who wrote about the Clinton scandals before forming the conservative media company. In some ways, he still views himself as a reporter, friends say. He comes to Washington often, dining with congressmen and senior aides and often seeing the president. He has occasionally golfed with the president in Florida and has mused with him about hirings and firings. He has posed for Oval Office pictures.

Trump’s longtime friends believe they understand his rhythms and thinking better than newer aides, who have worked in traditional, non-Trumpian politics, where legislators care about message discipline and don’t send 6 a.m. tweets that spark worldwide concern. Some, like Ruddy, have said at times his staff is serving him poorly.

Many of Trump’s friends get an unfiltered look into Trump’s West Wing in late-night phone calls.

Ruddy has previously criticized Trump’s aides, bashing chief of staff Reince Priebus on TV hours after having a drink with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Aides note that the president’s friends get to listen to Trump vent — but don’t have to work in the tension-filled West Wing every day with a mercurial boss who makes erratic moves and then blames others. West Wing aides have complained to Trump about Ruddy before, senior administration officials say, and Trump has expressed frustration with his friend’s public comments, according to administration officials familiar with the matter. Some aides also don’t like Ruddy’s access to the president.

But the sunny media executive — who keeps an apartment in New York but lives near Palm Beach — stays on good terms with the president, who has told others he genuinely likes Ruddy. Ruddy said in an interview Tuesday morning that he spoke to the president on Friday “but not about the Mueller firing.”

Ruddy plans to be at the Trump International Hotel in Washington this week, hosting members of Congress and others. He seemed amused Tuesday that his remarks had drawn worldwide attention — and had rankled some in the West Wing.

“It’s nice to know I’m on the cover of The New York Times today. Thank you. I didn’t know that,” Ruddy said Tuesday on C-SPAN, before moving over to MSNBC.